November, 2024
Not sure which came first, the idea of going to Piemonte or the fact that the 94th annual International Alba White Truffle Fair coincided perfectly with our trip. Let’s say a bit of both…
Alba was our base in the stunning, hilly narea of Langhe in Piemonte, which boasts not only the best truffles in the world but, it can be argued, some of the best wines in the world and second to none hazelnuts. In we dove for some gluttony!
Lovely Langhe
We stayed in Alba at a lovely little winery parked amongst fields of Nebbiolo vines. For dinner the first night, they sent us to a little roadside bistro at the bottom of the hill. Aside from wineries, this was the only restaurant on this stretch of country road. If you’re not a truffle hunter in these parts then you’re a wine aficionado. This place was hopping! No decor to write home about so we wondered what we were in for. The young waiter/sommelier took our order and then asked what grape we wanted to explore with the wine. Had to be Nebbiolo, of course! He reappeared with five bottles and told us stories about the wines and the winemakers to guide us in our choice. We had a selection that ran from a new, upstart winery to an Australian who settled in the area to make old-world wine to an 80-year-old who makes the most spectacular wines with his wife and has no children, nobody to take over his art when he’s ready to retire. Which did we choose? The one from Cascina Alberta, run by a pair of brothers and located just up the road from the restaurant. Of course we had our first Alba white truffle, a very simple tajarin pasta (extra yolks make this pasta softer and a perfect match for truffles) finished in mountain butter and topped with truffle he shaved right under my nose. Magical! On our way out, we were chatting with him about how amazing our experience was so he pulled out a bin from the fridge full of truffles (I’m afraid to calculate the investment in that bin). He opened the box and I went weak in the knees.
I love the collection of chimneys on the old rooftops.
To be given the distinction of Barbaresco, the Nebbiolo grapes must be grown in vineyards rich in clay and limestone around the towns of Barbaresco, Neive, Treiso, and a small part of Alba. We found ourselves in all of them! Very pretty towns which, as the Barbaresco wine, are more approachable than their fancier cousin, Barolo, over the hill. We couldn’t even get parking in Barolo (admittedly it was a long weekend) so we passed through, left to wonder what all the fuss was about.
It was noon-ish in Barbaresco. I guess the bells and the hands on the clock are not quite in sync.
Art appears in the most surprising of spots.
It’s truffle fair day! Imagine a trade show full of truffles and everything you can possibly make with them (even things you would never expect like gin and room spray), cheese, meats, porcini mushrooms, wine and hazelnuts. Who needs anything more?
Truffles, truffles, truffles…
We are very serious about truffles here…
…better be, given the cost!
This gentleman is a tartufaio (truffle hunter) selling the truffles he found in the wee hours that morning. We chatted for a long time in Italian. I love a gestural language…it levels the playing field! Notice the dried truffles on his hat. He told me he’d been to Canada to promote truffles and wore this hat!
Bought a piece of cheese. The vendor told us it could be unrefrigerated for a month since it was vacuum-sealed. We will only know how truthful he was when we get home.
The kids thought they were playing but really, they’ve been put to work separating the hazelnuts from the leaves and branches.
A little bit of extra magic in the tuba. What a reflection!
We spent a couple of hours in the classroom with Natale Romagnolo, a truffle sommelier who hails from five generations of truffle hunters. Truffle hunting is a very competitive business. Hunters go out with their dogs in the middle of the night to find their livelihood under the cover of darkness. The truffle hunter needs a license to hunt off his or her own property and they are absolutely free to trespass on someone else’s property in the search for truffles, as long as that other property is not fenced off. Interesting rule… Natale’s job during the festival is to evaluate every single truffle that is brought in for sale at the fair. Only the best are approved.
Natale brought us five truffles to evaluate based on aroma, firmness, colour and skin. It’s truly overwhelming. A few fun facts:
- The truffle takes two months to mature nestled on the roots of oak, poplar, linden, aspen, willow, or hazelnut trees. But it’s only in the last few days that it actually becomes a truffle as we know it. In these final days, the truffle grows into its full form and size and that’s when it starts to release its aroma that the dogs can follow.
- The size of the truffle is not about time in the ground, it is based on the DNA of the spore.
- There is a symbiotic relationship between the truffle and the tree. The truffle gives the tree water and the tree gives the truffle sugar.
- We love the aroma of truffles because it contains pheromones. Natale was full of jokes about pheromones and for some reason chose Adam as his example in all of them.
- Here’s the biggie for me: the white truffle is all about the aroma. I have to admit that when I was served white truffle and it was shaved in front of me, the aroma was intoxicating but when I ate it, there wasn’t much flavour. I thought we were served a bum truffle. Turns out, that’s how it is with white. The aroma is king! Black truffles have less aroma but more taste.
- You NEVER cook a white truffle or you kill its aroma. The black can be cooked as heat can bring out the flavour.
Valerio Berruti’s 12.5m sculpture of a girl called Alba, unveiled in the new Michele Ferrero (yes, THAT Ferrero or Ferrero Rocher and Nutella fame) square in Alba. In creating the partially formed child, the artist invites the viewer to complete her in their imagination.
We had a bit of a truffle break and went for a wine tasting at Braida Wines. We didn’t know we had to book ahead and showed up five minutes into Juliana’s presentation. The other four people were kind enough to switch to English so we joined in. It was the best tasting ever! Juliana has a passion for the wine and is a treasure trove of stories about the founder of the winery (Giacomo Bologna), the wines and the characters in the neighbourhood who inspired some of the names. One story was about the nasty old woman in the village who had a nose like a bird’s beak. She didn’t like Giacomo so when it came time to sell her vineyards as she neared the end of her life, she turned him down and sold to the town butcher instead. When she died, the butcher happily sold the vineyards to Giacomo. He was a butcher! What does he want with vineyards? The label, in her honour, is Bricco dell’Uccellone (Big Bird’s Jug). Another fabulous part of our tasting was befriending one of our fellow tasters. She’s a PR executive by day and a sommelier for fun from Ferrara (which is near Bologna) and we will definitely connect with her when we are in Bologna next May!
On the other side of the valley in Langhe, we went to visit Marco Robaldo at Cuor di Nocciola Della Langhe in Cravanzana, home of what is reputed to be the best hazelnuts in the world. Marco has 7,000 hazelnut trees on his 23 hectares, producing 40 tonnes per year. At harvest, they painstakingly go through every nut by hand, rejecting 50% of them. They keep the perfect ones to roast and turn into pastes and spreads. The rest are sold to low quality producers like … Nutella.
A few hazelnuts were missed.
Vineyards everywhere as far as the eye can see.
One of the prettiest towns we came across was Monforte d’Alba, a colourful hilltop town in the middle of Barolo country.
We climbed up the winding, cobbled streets (I can’t imagine how some women we saw managed this feat in stilettos…maybe they didn’t know the landscape before they came), past beautifully painted houses that real people live in.
Real people in real houses with great artistic flair.
Another beautiful execution of the truffle. This time on a fondue. Our waiter appeared with a cloche housing a couple of truffles, a small scale and his trusty truffle shaver. They are very careful not to overserve this precious commodity.
The aroma is second to none.
The town hosts the annual Monforte Jazz Festival in its outdoor Auditorium Horszowski. It only seats 300-400 people but still attracts big Italian and international jazz greats like Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Dee Dee Bridgewater among many!
La Morra’s "Barolo Through the Eyes of Children". The love of wine sure starts early here. Must be bred in the bone!
After all the wine, truffle and hazelnuts, our time in Langhe has come to an end. The adventure continues…